CHASING TROUBLE

She realized that in her hurry, she’d not locked the front door and before she could gather herself together to do so, there was a knock and her door opened. Moments later, Nicholas was inside the house and striding over to her.

His eyes locked straight onto hers. His Adam’s apple moved up and down his throat repeatedly before his lips finally parted. “Please don’t leave me,” he said in a hoarse voice.

She could only stare at him. Was this really Nicholas? Was this wild-eyed, disheveled man the same perfectly groomed and contained man she’d left only an hour ago? His frantic eyes held hers. There was a sheen in them… And then she remembered what an excellent actor he’d already proved himself to be and turned her face away.

“Go home, Nick. I’ve already said we can make an agreement for custody that’s fair to all of us. You’ve nothing to worry about. I won’t stop you seeing Charlie,”

“This has nothing to do with our son. Please, Care, I am begging you… Don’t go.”

“Why?” she asked tonelessly.

“Because I can’t live without you.”

Thinking she might be sick at the new lows he’d just plumbed, she snapped her face back to him. “You sick, lying bastard.”

Nicholas winced but accepted the deserved blow. “I am a bastard. I’ve treated you appallingly but I’m…” He took a deep breath and pulled viciously at his hair. “Can you take Charlie to his room? There are things I need to say that I don’t want him to hear.”

Her red eyes-Fuck, his cruelty had caused that-narrowed but after a moment she rose from her seat and carried their son to his room. Nicholas sank into the seat opposite the one she’d been sitting in and bowed his head, scraping his nails over the back of his skull, trying to gather his thoughts before she returned.

His thoughts were still splintered when she sat down again. He lifted his head.

Her legs were crossed, spine straight, an imperious expression on her blotchy, tear-stained face. He recognised that expression. Why hadn’t he recognised her stance as a protective shield?

“My father once told me that I lack empathy” he said slowly, the answer to his own question coming to him. “He is not wrong.”

“He is. To a degree.” She arched a brow in response.

“I learned at a young age to block feelings.”

“I’ve already guessed that. And you have my sympathy for whatever reasons are behind it.”

“I don’t want your sympathy.”

“I know that too.”

“I can stop my heart from feeling. Turn it to stone.”

“To stop yourself from being hurt. You don’t need to be Freud to understand that, Nick,”

He nodded his agreement. “It stops me being hurt but it also stops me being able to recognise other people’s pain.” He grimaced and corrected himself.

“Rather, it enables me to ignore their pain,” He gave a grunt of gloomy laughter. “Not that I have let anyone get close to me, Except my family. Can you believe that?”

“You do have a great relationship with your Aunt… And your father. Having that sort of relationship with your family is still a good thing,”

He felt a tiny release of the pressure on his chest at this slight softening. “And then I met you.”

She stiffened.

“Caroline Anderson… You…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed. “I don’t know why it was different with you but there is something about you I reacted to more strongly than I have ever reacted to anyone before. I have never craved someone’s company before and it was never just about the sex, even if I did try to kid myself that that’s all it was. I told myself your words of love to me were just words. But you would put your cheek to my chest and I’d know you were listening to my heartbeat. You wanted to feel my heartbeat. No one had ever done that before. No one had ever got close enough to. And I would feel your heartbeat against my skin too and the warmth of your body and just want to stay there and never let you go.”

The imperious expression on Caroline’s face had gone.” I think I fell in love with you a long time ago and didn’t know it. But even if I had, I would have fought it and the outcome would have been the same. I would have still left because I’d have fought it. You’d gotten too close…”

Her chin was wobbling, throat moving.

“You’d made me feel things, Care, and that terrified me. Feelings leave you vulnerable. It’s perverse logic, I know, but subconsciously I knew if I pushed you away first then you couldn’t leave me. You couldn’t hurt me.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. He wanted so badly to press his thumb to her cheek and brush the tear away.

“I tried to stay away from you. I even told myself the day I waited outside your estate that all I wanted was to check up on you. And yes, I came to see you at the party about Charlie but he was the excuse I needed to justify throwing myself back into your life and even then I fought it. I fell in love with our son and I could accept that love because he was an innocent child who could never hurt me, whereas you… Caroline, you have no idea of the power you have over me. You have no idea how much it tortured me to imagine you with Glen. I thought you’d moved on-how could you not? How could I be special enough for anyone to hold on to? But I never moved on from you. It was impossible.”

The beats of Caroline’s heart were so strong the echoes thrashed in her dazed, barely comprehending head. The desperation with which she wanted to believe him… But the fear. She shrank back as he slid onto the floor to kneel before her and shrank into herself when he took her hand. She tried to block her ears to his words, deny them their power.

“There is only you,” he said quietly. “And I can’t fight it any more or deny it to myself. I love you. You have turned my stone-cold heart into something that beats freely with love for you. It’s you I need to be with. You I need to spend my nights with. You I trust with my life, my soul and my heart. Please, give me one more chance, let me prove myself to be the man you deserve, I beg you, and not for our son’s sake but for mine because I can’t live without you. I’ve tried and every road leads back to you. Let me earn your love and your trust. I swear on our son’s life that I will never betray it again. I swear.”

Caroline barely noticed her fingers had laced into his. The seams of her ripped, damaged heart were threading hesitantly back together and, finally, she dared to look at him.” When I agreed to marry you, it was for Charlie’s sake.”

He breathed deeply. “I know.”

“Everything I’ve done since I learned I was pregnant has been for him.”

His voice became a hoarse whisper. “I know.”

“But you…” She leaned forward, closer to him. “You brought me back to life. You made me remember that I’m not just a mother but a woman with needs of her own. And that woman loves you,” she whispered. “She’s always loved you.”

His throat moved. “I never deserved it. But I will. If you’ll let me.”

Hands shaking, she cupped his cheeks and stared deeper into his eyes. The look she saw in them sewed the last piece of her heart back into place. “Yes.” Unable to contain the feelings a moment longer, she brought her face to his and kissed him. “Oh, Nick, yes.”..

He made a sound like a prayer and then his arms wrapped tightly around her and she was enveloped in his arms so tenderly and lovingly that her mended heart soared into song.

Nicholas stared into Caroline’s eyes, filled to the brim with emotions. And when she smiled and said, “Let’s get our son and go back home,” he knew he would spend the rest of his life worshiping her and thanking God everyday for bringing her into his life and setting him free to love. To love her.

________

THE END

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